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Monday, August 27, 2012

Did you get your wall print product credits at 40% off from our end of the summer sale? I did! One thing I love to do with my wall prints is to make custom Puzzle Collages and have them printed at the Creative Memories digital center.

I've recently been making tons of puzzle collages and I thought I'd share the technique with you.

I've created a lesson handout in pdf format. Beware, there are a lot of pages in this lesson. If you'd like a free copy of this lesson to use in your own personal digi-scrapbooking or if you want to teach this method to your customers, you can request the lesson handout by contacting me at cmsher (at) gmail (dot) com. If your email server doesn't allow you to receive big files, you may want to consider clicking on the photos in this post and saving them to your computer as individual jpgs.

If you make a puzzle collage using this method, I'd love to see what you come up with. Feel free to post your example on my facebook page HERE.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Instagram. When you hear that word do you picture the little icon on your smartphone? Or do you not have ANY clue what I'm referring to? Well, don't despair. Whether you LOVE Instagram or have no idea what it is, this lesson has a lot of fun things to try. This lesson is specifically a digital scrapbooking lesson.

I recently returned from vacation. We go to the same place EVERY year. That's something I have a love/hate relationship with. I love re-living the annual traditions but I hate that I can only afford the time and money for one vacation when there are so many places I'd like to explore.

Our vacay-spot is a no frills little strip of beach in the extreme southeast of North Carolina. There is no boardwalk, there are no carnival rides or arcade games. There are a few restaurants. There are no lifeguards perched on tall wooden stands (tho. we do bring my teenagers who ARE lifeguards), no one tells you where the rip tides are and you don't have to fight for a spot on the sand. We rent two houses and a pile of relatives fit inside them. The beach is in the front yard of one of the houses, the other house is across a small street from the first and the inter-coastal waterway is behind that house. The sun sets over the waterway, not over the shore. Activities are family based: family dinners, game nights, body-surfing contests, building in the sand, etc... My teenagers do not complain. They love it.

This year, there were more smartphones. Mostly iPhones and then one droid. Two of the iPhone users were brand new to iPhone, so instructions were offered, favorite apps were shared and a LOT of photos were taken with NOT just point-and-shoot or SLRs but also with phone cameras. Much of what we did that week went instantly to Facebook with the Instagram program. It was a lot of fun.

My daughter was one of the new iPhone owners and she had a blast with Instagram. She has a great ability taking photos with her phone whereas I'm better w/ my digital SLR. Here are some snapshots from our week, insta-style.

When I returned home and started importing my beach photos into Memory Manager, I loved the look of the funky filters and faded squares of the Instagram shots. It got me thinking about how Instagram fits in with my objective of creating pages, albums and stories about the photos I take and I realized that it definitely has its place. I also started thinking about how easy it would be to make my photos look like they were Instagrammed (is that an official verb yet like google has become?) using SBC.

I started playing around with my beach photos in Storybook 4.0 and I discovered I wanted to share these ideas with other digital scrapbookers and see what they thought. So thus, the lesson Instagram It - SBC Style was born. I've included the pages of 6-page pdf handout I created for the lesson here in the blog. You can click on them separately to open them in a new window and see them bigger.

I am also offering the handout for FREE to anyone who'd like to use the methods I show in this lesson with their customers. Wouldn't this be a fun lesson to teach at Croptoberfest this fall, when everyone shows up ready to play around with their vacation photos? If you'd like a free pdf handout of this lesson, contact me at cmsher (at) gmail (dot) com to request it.

I am including ONE free png file for the lesson on page 6 of the handout.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I should be organizing photos and helping two of my four kids pack for college - but instead, I'm writing digital scrapbooking lessons. Can I just say that the latter is MUCH more fun!

So here it is - a new lesson entitled "Weave It Through" I do have a pdf handout for this lesson so if you are a cmc and want to use it with your clients, I'm happy to share. You'll need to contact me at this email address. Please request the pdf file by emailing me as opposed to using the comments section below. However, please DO leave a comment if you enjoy the lesson - I love to hear from you!

The lesson is three pages long. Check it out in the photos listed below!

If you use this technique on a digital page, feel free to post your page on my facebook group page. If you prefer to, just right click on each of the photos shown above and open them in a new window to see them larger, or save the photo to your hard drive and view them full size. Enjoy!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

If you're a Creative Memories consultant, this is probably old news - unless you've had your head in the sand (literally - like me, on vacation at the beach). But if you are a cM enthusiast, you probably want to know all of this great news from cM's 25th Anniversary National convention that took place in Minneapolis a few days back.

So - what's new you say? Well, of course, there are NEW PRODUCTS! You can get a sneak peak at them now, and you can begin ordering them on September 1st. Here are some of the product highlights.

1. DREAM - a new line developed in partnership with Creative Memories continued venture with the Make a Wish foundation. The dream line features stars and hot air balloons. There is a 12X12 coverset.

Also a PicFolio album.

And lots of coordinating products to help you put them all together fast and easily.

2. Now talk about fast and easy. Check out the new Fast to Fabulous album. It is seriously retro-groovy. The album comes together with pre-printed (predecorated) pages. You just need to add photos, a few captions and you're done - no tools to use, no paper to add... if you don't have ANY time to "scrapbook" this is totally the album for you. And who can pass up a coverset THIS fun?

3. If you are always looking for the latest bag to carry your scrapbook supplies to a workshop while still maintaining your trendy look, this silver Nancy O'Dell bag is for YOU.

4. Memory Manager is getting a facelift. It's already awesome - I know right? what more could make it better? Well, check out this super video from cM showing you all the new features of MM 4.0. This new updated version is available as a download starting Sept. 1st. I know you will not be able to live without it. (That said, it's cheaper I believe to order v3.0 right now and then UPgrade to 4.0 in Sept - get moving!)

6. Are you a Creative Memories consultant? NO? Did you ever think you might want to be a consultant? Why not now -get all your products at 30% discount, including sale items. AND... start right now to earn a trip to Oahu, Hawaii for FREE! Oh yeah, and change of venue... for next year's convention. It's in Denver - in JULY... take a trip out west to this fun city and write it off - it's a business trip gals, but don't think that doesn't mean you can't have fun. Click here to learn more about becoming a consultant.

7. New mini catalog to see it all.... I have a pdf version of the new catalog and will mail it to you if you are not a consultant. Email me HERE to get yours.

9. Okay - yes, there are MORE new products, several new tools are coming your way - some are available Sept 1st, some are available at my Croptoberfest event (details and dates coming soon).

10. WOW! All that new float your boat? Send me a comment and let me know which news item you are most excited about. If you want more information, don't hesitate to drop me an email. You can reach me here.

About Me

I'm Sher. Thanks for visiting. I'm a certified personal photo organizer and mother of four. I have more hobbies than I can keep up with, but I still try! I author a few blogs which I occasionally remember to update. I love to crochet, hike, camp, take photographs, sew, quilt and garden. I do my best to run and knit but I'm not so good at either and I'd love to learn yoga. I'm kind of crazy about the quality of my food - I won't eat anything with GMOs, I prefer real food made with real organic ingredients and I prefer to shop local.